Let us say, then, that both the realist and the antirealist accept the results of scientific investigations as "true," on a par wi...th more homely truths.... And call this acceptance of scientific truths the "core position." What distinguishes realists from antirealists, then, is what they add onto this core position ... a third alternative emerges--and an attractive one at that. It is the core position itself, and all by itself.... Let me introduce the acronym NOA (pronounced as in "Noah"), for natural ontological attitude, and, henceforth, refer to the core position under that designation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodicallydigested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one. The...>knowledge of reasons and their conclusions constitutes abstract, that of causes and their effects, and of the laws of nature, natural science.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

The whole of natural theology ... resolves itself into one simple, though somewhat ambiguous proposition, That the cause or causes... of order in the universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

A person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity:... while the haughty Dogmatist, persuaded that he can erect a compleat system of Theology by the mere help of philosophy, disdains any further aid, and rejects this adventitious instructor.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualit...ies, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Cant is always rather nauseating; but before we condemn political hypocrisy, let us remember that it is the tribute paid by men of... leather to men of God, and that the acting of the part of someone better than oneself may actually commit one to a course of behaviour perceptibly less evil than what would be normal and natural in an avowed cynic.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Thus I believe that without doing violence to the ancient doctrine of the Chinese, one can say that the Li has been brought by the... perfection of its nature to choose, from several possibilities, the most appropriate; and that by this means it has produced the Ki (Ch'i) or matter with dispositions such that all the rest has come about by natural propensities, in the same way that Monsieur Descartes claims to bring forth the present order of the world as a consequence of a small number of initially generated assumptions. Thus the Chinese, far from being blameworthy, merit praise for their ideas of things being created by their natural propensity and by a pre-established harmony.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Feste. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Ay, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so... do I, too. He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »